14 DAY TRIAL // Flatout 2 was one of my favorite racing games of many years ago, managing to deliver not just some high quality racing experiences, as well as a solid multiplayer mode that I enjoyed alongside friends and neighbors for quite some time, but also plenty of other hilarious modes, like the outrageous stunt ones, where you needed to throw your human driver through your windshield in a variety of mini-games.
Sadly, the franchise, after some very successful iterations, was caught up in a troublesome legal debate that eventually resulted in the rights being passed to Strategy First, which got a new developer, Team 6 Studios, to work on a new game, in the form of Flatout 3: Chaos and Destruction.
Now, after zero marketing or promotional efforts, the game was released on Steam as a digital download, so we decided to take it for a spin and see if this new title is actually worthy of the Flatout name or if it needs to be destroyed instantly.
While the menus look Flatout-ish, once again allowing you to choose different sorts of cars from various classes, as well as the appearance of your actual driver, once you start the game, you quickly realize that this is nothing but an empty hull of what Flatout used to be.
First up, as you can see below, the visuals aren’t that impressive and the game just splatters an oversaturated effect over everything, which can’t be modified or turned off in the already horrible settings menu.
After you get over the look of the game, you’re then forced to wrestle with horrible controls, as the cars feel more like boats than actual vehicles, with a tendency to go anywhere but where you want them to go.
Then you have the rival AI which is grueling even on the lowest difficulty, blazing past your car, crashing into it as soon as you get close to them, and generally causing a huge amount of damage to your ride until you’re faced with the ‘Wrecked’ screen.
After barely managing to complete a race, I tried out a few other modes, hoping that the studio got some of them right. That wasn’t the case, sadly, as the monster truck events are even more clunky, with the giant vehicles have even worse steering than regular cars.
At the end of the video you can even see an attempt at a demolition derby event that takes place on a frozen lake that’s way too big for its own good. Combine the slippery ice with the already terrible steering and you can just hope that you end up crashing into an opponent and not just drive around aimlessly.
Last but not least, I tried a stunt event, but that was a decision I quickly regretted, as I needed to completely go back to the main menu screen and see which button ejects my driver from the car because the game fails to mention it for you when you start your very first stunt event, while the in-race menu screen just allows you to fiddle with the volume settings.
Overall, Flatout 3: Chaos & Destruction is a horrible game that pretty much desecrates the name of the racing series. If you want a proper experience, then I wholeheartedly recommend either Flatout 2 or Flatout: Ultimate Carnage.
If you want to see for yourself how the new game feels, check out the video below.
